Careless people: how schools become places no one wants to work in

How intelligent accountability offers a solution to our squandered talent and broken systems

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Some schools are tough. Children push back. Systems creak. Everyone is exhausted. The daily grind of dealing with low-level disruption saps energy, erodes morale and leaves staff running on fumes and students cheated of the education they deserve. To survive, teachers in these schools become like warlords in a failed state. They govern through force of personality, charisma, and sheer bloody-mindedness. And yet, in the bleakness, real bonds form. Colleagues trust one another. They become a survivors’ club, welded together by shared hardship.

When schools like this are brokered into new Trusts and serious effort is made to fix broken systems, life improves for everyone. Fixing behaviour isn’t intellectually demanding. We know how to do it. What it demands is relentless, exhausting effort. I’ve watched schools transform within a fortnight as young people realise expectations have meaning and actions have consequences. Disruption-free classrooms change everything. Those who built careers on charisma find their stock declining. Those who struggled to control classes realise they can actually teach and that maybe they’re far better than they ever imagined. But this shift is hard. Teachers who have committed their professional lives to serving in the most challenging circumstances can suddenly find their faces no longer fit.

The best leaders see this for what it is: a loss. They understand the damage to status and self-worth that can follow. They work with staff to help them adapt. They nurture a culture that values individuality and eccentricity while insisting on consistency in essentials. This takes skill, patience, and the determination not to let anyone - child or adult - fail. If, in the end, some decide the new order isn’t for them, wise leaders help them leave with dignity, celebrate their service, and wish them well.

As Rebecca Allen and Sam Sims argue in The Teacher Gap, too many schools operate like ‘sausage factories,’ churning through staff with casual disregard for their well-being. This is little short of a criminal squandering of a precious resource. We wring our hands about teacher recruitment and retention while burning through those we have at an unsustainable rate. A system that treats its people as disposable has no moral claim to be taken seriously.

If we are careless of staff wellbeing, if we smash up careers and then retreat back into the justification that because we’re more senior we therefore know best, other people are left to clean up the mess we make.

Effective school leadership requires something likethe principles of Intelligent Accountability.¹

The principles of Intelligent Accountability

1. We need to know we are accountable to be our best

With the possible exception of a few saintly individuals, no one will be their best if they don’t feel anyone cares what they do. We all need to held to account for our choices and actions if we are to overcome our natural inclination to do what’s expeditious instead of what is right.

Accountability must be clear and unambiguous. Staff should know in advance what they are accountable for, how that accountability will work, and what consequences - positive or negative - will follow. In tough schools, this means holding staff accountable for what matters: planning, teaching, and contributing to a shared culture of high expectations. But crucially, leaders must also be accountable: for behaviour systems that work, for policies that make teaching possible, and for supporting staff in holding the line. If either side shirks this, the whole system collapses into blame and mistrust.

2. We are most likely to improve when we feel trusted

Trust is not a soft option. In a school where trust exists, teachers feel safe to take risks, to be honest about difficulties, and to ask for help. For schools to improve. teachers need to be able to be their best, not just look their best.

No one is able to thrive when they do not feel trusted. Leaders of tough schools must make trust their starting point. Teachers in these settings often feel scrutinised, doubted, and disposable. Instead, they need to know that their efforts are seen, their challenges understood, and that leadership has their back. Without this, improvement will be capped.

And to be trusted, we must be trustworthy. Trustworthiness is made up of two elements: honesty and expertise. Honestly is more than not lying, it’s avoiding Orwellian doublespeak. If we say we value kindness and then we treat people unkindly, what does that tell people? Or if we value clarity but people are confused as to what we want them to do? And worst, when the value of urgency is enacted as expediency. We have to do what we say we’ll do. When we over promise and under deliver, trust is eroded. People will forgive us once, perhaps twice, and then they’ll learn we can’t be trusted. In addition, to be trusted we must be sufficiently expert to have our views taken seriously. If we can’t walk the talk, if we don’t really know what we’re even talking about, why should anyone trust that we know what to do?

3. Intelligent accountability depends on mutual trust

This is clear guidance from research about the best way to help people to account. Intelligent accountability requires that:

• we know how we will be held accountable before we are judged or commit to a course of action

• we believe that the audience is well-informed and interested in accuracy

• the audience’s views must be unknown.

The first of these two are uncontraversial but the third may well have you shaking your head. Surely, effective leaders know best and shopuld just tell staff what’s expected? This approach to accountability breeds compliance at best, pretence at worst. We may say we want consistency, but what do we actually mean?

No one sensible would ever want all teachers to do exactly the same thing in every lesson. Obviously, we want maths teachers and PE teachers to do different things. What we really want is for schools to be like orchestras, with every member of staff playing their part in creating beautiful music under the guidance of a skilled conductor.

This does not mean there is no place for sometimes telling people what to do. Clearly, we should never negotiate whether teachers should hit students: it’s against the law. Similarly, we should not negotiate whether teachers should turn up to lessons on time: that’s a basic requirement. But where’s the line? I’d suggest that most pastoral issues do not need to be negotiated but you should always be prepared to negotiate teachers’ curriculuar and pedagogical choices. Unless, of course, you think you know better than every memeber of your staff how they should teach their subject in their classroom to their students.

4. Equality is unfair

Most of the problems we face when trying to hold staff to account intelligently come from the misguided belief that we should treat all teachers equally. But treating everyone the same is not the same as treating everyone fairly. Take promotion. Should all teachers have the opportunity to apply for a role? Of course. But what should the outcome be? Obviously, the person best suited to the role should get the job. Opportunities should be given equally; outcomes should be based on what is most fair.

In Why people prefer unequal societies, Starmans, Sheskin & Bloom present a fascinating argument about human intuitions regarding fairness and inequality. They explore why people say they want equality but seem content to live in unequal societies. The answer lies in how we think about fairness. From early childhood, people show a preference not for strict equality, but for fair inequality. When resources are shared, we’re happy for those who work harder or contribute more to receive a greater share. We resent equal sharing of rewards when effort or merit differ. By contrast, when resources come by chance or windfall, people do expect equal division. Many inequalities in real societies persist not because people approve of inequality itself, but because they believe that it reflects differences in effort, talent, or contribution.

When we design policies that treat all teachers equally, we end up treating the majority unfairly. We routinely insist that every teacher in a school attends the same CPD, regardless of their experience, subject, or needs. Novices are overwhelmed and experts are bored.

Fairness recognises that people need different things to succeed and designing systems that respond to those needs. If we ignore this, we don’t create equity we create resentment, failure, and stagnation.

5. Autonomy needs to be earned

In too many schools, autonomy is granted by default or denied absolutely. Both approaches fail. The best schools make clear that autonomy is a prize: earned through effort, expertise, and reliability. When staff show they can uphold high standards, they deserve the space to innovate and flourish. When they can’t, they need structure and support, not condemnation or abandonment. This principle also applies to leadership. Leaders earn the moral right to shape culture through their example, their fairness, and their willingness to listen.

This effort/expertise matrix is a useful guide as to how how autonomy staff should be given. Clearly, staff in the top right box should be treated differently to staff in the bottom left box. Teachers in the top left box may be enthusiastic, but need lots of guidance to be successful. teachers in the bottom right box need to have their expertise respected if they are not to feel resentful.

If these principles are ignored, schools run the risk of becoming places no one wants to work in. Of course, no one should ever have complete autonomy to do whatever they want, but we all want to be able to make meaningful choices about those things we are knowledgeable and passionate about. If you’re a senior leader who believes your school can be improved by identifying teachers who don’t care and replacing them with those that do, you are almost certainly a victim of the Fundamental Attribution Error. By ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of teachers want the best for their students are treating them like recalcitrant children, we create toxic workplaces where no one can be their best.

If we really want system-wide improvement, we must start holding schools to account, intelligently, for staff turnover. This could be done fairly easily. Every school submits workforce data to the DfE. We know exactly which schools retain staff and which burn them out. A school that haemorrhages staff year after year is a school that fails its people as much as its pupils. Inspection frameworks should take this seriously. Accountability systems can, and should, spotlight retention as a key indicator of a school’s health.

Remember: systems are perfectly designed to get the results they get. If the result of school improvement is staff being forced out for not being ‘aligned’ to new expectations, our systems and those who lead them are both responsible and culpable.

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If you’ve found this post interesting, you might enjoy this week’s essay for paid subscribers on the Fundamental Attribution Error. I keep subscription as low as Substack will allow: £3.50 per month or £30 per year.

1. As you can see, I’ve written a book on this and I think it’s a good read (or listen) but there’s really no need to buy it to follow the principles. Also, you might think I haven’t go these princeiples quite right or that I’ve missed out something essential. That’s perfectly possible. I would however urge you to read Jennifer Lerner and Phil Tetlock’s paper on what accountability processes are most likely to get you what you want.